All Articles Tagged "Harlem Heights"

What makes a reality show worthy of your eyes, and what makes it boring as hell? Maybe it’s the drama. Maybe you’re looking for positivity. Maybe feeding off of controversy can help push it over the top. These nine shows tried all of these approaches, but the end results weren’t a winner. That’s why they all got the axe after a season. Some weren’t really given a chance, while others knew they were a mess from the start, but what do you think? Which of the shows could have been good a second time around and which were you done with from jump street? Let’s check them out and see where they went wrong.

“Ghetto,” “depraved,” “goofy,” “idiotic,” “awkward,” and “garbage” are just a few words that have been used to describe these 15 failed TV shows — and some of those adjectives have been used somewhat deservedly. Many of these series were poorly acted, badly produced, and terribly developed, and that’s why their tenure was quite short lived. Do you remember these feature failures?

Method & Red (2004)

According to Method Man, Method and Red failed because his vision was never realized. He says, the show was meant to be “ghetto and intelligent” but because of Fox network’s poor editing and decision to include a laugh track, the show ended up being ghetto and foolish. After heated exchanges between Method Man, Redman and Fox produced no agreements on the direction in which the show should take, it was scrapped partway through its first season, leaving four episodes unaired.

Kayne West and Kim Kardashian appear to be two peas in a pod as they move into their newly purchased $11 million mansion and prepare for the upcoming birth of their child. Some people have even begun to let their guard down long enough to believe that the Kimye relationship could in fact be real love and not just some highly orchestrated publicity stunt by an attention-hungry mastermind. However, Kanye’s ex-girlfrined Brooke Crittendon is ringing the alarm saying that this relationship is not nearly as organic as it appears. In a recent interview with The Sun, the 31-year-old dropped many bombs regarding Kanye and his newfound love with reality star Kim Kardashian. Check out some of the highlights from her interview.

On Kanye’s semi-obsession with Kim:

“I know he has had a thing with her for a while. I’m sure he watched her tape. After we broke up, we caught up as friends and he mentioned her, I knew something was there.

On Kim being a good look for Kanye’s brand:

“For Kanye, what other person besides Kim Kardashian is there? There’s Halle Berry, J-Lo and Beyonce but they are all taken. She fits into his brand.”

“Part of being untouchable is having what other people want. It’s about saying, ‘Everybody wants her and she wants me’. That makes sense in Kanye’s world.”

On the nature of Kanye and Kim’s relationship:

“In Hollywood, you cannot say ‘forever’. Them being together satisfies them for now.”

“Having a baby ticks a box. She wanted kids and it’s his legacy.”

On the role Jay Z played in the conception of Kanye and Kim’s baby:

“He admires Jay-Z and they are very close. Over the years Jay has been a role model to him. Whether it is starting to be more mature, taking chances with clothes or getting married and starting a family, ultimately he takes those cues from Jay.”

Brooke and Kanye dated for nearly three years. They met back in 2004 at a concert where he was opening for Usher. The two eventually split because of infidelity. You may remember Brooke from a few years ago. She appeared on BET’s short-lived reality show Harlem Heights.

What do you make of all of this? Do her statements merely confirm what you’ve been thinking all along? Do you believe she has some sort of agenda behind sharing all of this?

Jazmine Denise is a news writer for Madame Noire. Follow her on Twitter @jazminedenise

The season finale of Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta garnered record ratings for VH1 — 6.5 million people tuned in, tying the series with NFL pre-season coverage and once again solidifying VH1 as a leader in reality television. It’s interesting that VH1 continues to turn to majority Black casts for success in reality programming, a strategy that seems a better fit for its sister station BET.

Despite being owned by the same company, BET hasn’t been able to capture the success VH1 has seen in reality television. It seems like the network is scared to attempt anything groundbreaking. The history of criticism of BET’s portrayal of African-Americans is a long one. Ever since Bob Johnson sold the channel to Viacom in 2003, BET can’t seem to get on the good side of its target audience.

The channel saw moderate success with the series College Hill, the closest BET has come to getting their strategy for reality television right. Seasons three and four brought record ratings at the time, though they’re dwarfed in comparison to Love & Hip Hop’s numbers. We won’t even talk about Baldwin Hills and Harlem Heights,” the network’s shows chronicling the lives of the young and the attractive (and let’s not forget the boring). They don’t make a blip on the radar of Mona Scott-Young, the creator of the Love & Hip Hop franchise.

BET’s other strategy for reality television is to follow around celebrities. Keyshia Cole, Tameka “Tiny” Cottle, Toya Wright and even skateboarder Terry Kennedy have lent their lives to BET’s lens. Offering a sneak peek into celebrities’ lives sounds like a gold mine. But the stars they choose don’t have the influence to bring in overly impressive ratings.

Keyshia Cole: The Way It Is set a record as the number one series telecast in BET history with more than 2.9 million viewers tuning in for the show’s season finale. Again, Mona Scott-Young is unbothered. Keyshia Cole is famous and had a platinum album at the time, but her star power alone doesn’t translate to blockbuster ratings.

What’s BET missing? Aesthetically, VH1’s shows look better. You can tell they are putting more money into production. More than that, VH1 isn’t afraid for their characters to look bad. Almost every show on VH1 depicting African Americans has been met with calls for boycotts. But, while the network is receiving petitions, they are simultaneously pulling record-breaking ratings. It’s a mixed message BET has never experienced.